The government’s financial support is “becoming a distraction from the real issues” so he will “not be seeking reimbursement of legal costs from the government in his legal action for defamation,” Minister of Finance Bob Richards said today.

The Finance Minister launched legal action against BPSU President and People’s Campaign member Jason Hayward after Mr Hayward made certain statements about the Minister on a TV appearance in relation to the emails over the airport contract with the Canadian Commercial Corporation.

On August 17th, while replying to a Parliamentary Question in the House of Assembly, Minister Richards said that the legal action against Mr Hayward would be funded by the Government, saying “The action has directly to do with my fulfillment of my duties as Minister of Finance, and the Cabinet took the position that this related to that, it was a Government matter, and the Cabinet decided this would be the policy.”

However in a statement today, Minister Richards said, “I have been grateful for the Cabinet’s support of the principle of financially backing a Minister of the Government when he is defending himself against defamatory comments in connection with the carrying out his of duties as Minister.

“This is an important principle because if a Minister did not have the means to pay legal costs to defend himself and the government did not support him, then it may become open season on that or any such Minister.

“However, in my case, the government’s financial support is becoming a distraction from the real issues surrounding the case. Let it be known, therefore, that while I will continue to seek legal redress through the courts, I will not be seeking reimbursement of legal costs from the government in my legal action for defamation.

“Any financial damages awarded to me by the courts will be donated to charity,” added the Minister.

This is very similar to what happened with former Premier Craig Cannonier’s lawsuit against Marc Bean and David Burt, as it was initially stated it would be a “government lawsuit,” with Mr Cannonier subsequently saying the lawsuit would not be covered by public funds.

PC, BPSU executive committee, BIU executive committee, PLP… is there really any difference, different organizations working for a singular political purpose to have a PLP government again… all getting there orders from the same people.

Do not be fooled. Min. Richards did not wake up today and decide “I will not use public funds for the legal fight.” We can rest assured that his fellow OBA members would have acted to convince him.

On a related note, it would be interesting to see the Cabinet Paper that proposed for government to fund the action. The analysis should have included discussion about the likelihood of public fallout and previous comments from the Auditor General.

And that was solely due to the PLP’s decision to increase the budget deficit by 2,620% in just a decade.

One that same time period the PLP tripled Govt expenditure on relation to Govt income.

The last PLP budget resulted in a $408mn deficit which the OBA has reduced by almost 50%.

If they didn’t borrow then the other option left was to enact draconian budget cuts to balance the budget immediately.

That would’ve meant laying off more than half the civil service at least.

Is that what you would at her have happened as opposed I borrowing to close the PLP deficit?

I agree that the OBA is far from perfect, but the argument of them needlessly borrowing is simply disingenuous and is a sad attempt to rewrite history regarding the PLP’s complete mismanagement and destruction of our public finances.

In other words the requirement to borrow is simply a consequence of PLP’s out of control spending.

EB has so much influenced the PLP that there are so many now with NO integrity. Lies and lies and twist of the truth! My head hurts and I’m dizzy! The party will never be the same!

It’s unbelievable how strong the seeds of mischievousness, deceit and alright lying, at all or any costs, have taken. Lets lie and cheat and fight each other! The truth no longer matters! Really, does anybody understand why and for what?

Are there are true Christians left in the PLP? Are there any members left with some integrity? Please stand up!

@Vote for Me. I totally agree. There was a lot more pressure behind the scenes including voting ones I bet. PLP showing itself to be an effective and resilient Opposition despite the continued name calling ad nauseum by OBA supporters which, when all else is lost is the only weapon they have left.

I sure hope thst if the Pee El Pee ever get back in power, you will pay close attention, like you are now, to them so that their spending can be reigned in. And you should have done that when they were the Government, maybe then we wouldn’t be in such a mess.

Good job! Previously with Govt paying the legal fees, Mr Richards said that any award made to him would go into the Gov’t coffers. Now with him paying the legal fees himself he has now decided to donate the award to charity. Charities may benefit but Gov’t loses that potential donation. Money that could be used to reduce the debt. Surely the pressure applied by the PLP could have been redirected to something more worthwhile that would benefit Bermuda. But the PLP did score a minor victory here, the island however did not.

Now will the PLP return the money spent on it’s lawsuits to attempt to prevent the media from publishing the results of the investigation into the BHC scandals. These cases went as far as the Privy Council and the result of all three cases was that the Bermudian People had the right to know how their money had been spent, and that right superceded all other factors. The only people to gain from keeping the truth from the people were the PLP, while the people of Bermuda would be the losers. It was ironic that the people of Bermuda funded a case which was not in their interest! By the way; How much does it cost to take a case to The Privy Council?

I dont really support party politics as I think Bermuda is to small. So if the PLP got back in power, who will they have for a leader, finance minister etccc. The guys they have right now are to IMMATURE and lack experience in MY OPINION. I also do not agree with everything the OBA are doing but.

when I was engaged in legal battle, I paid my own legal bill. After throwing 12k down the toilet my lawyer got rude with me. I fired her greedy azz took my case file from her and handled it myself….all those years of watching Jack McCoy saved me 100k in legal fees. Its not that difficult Bobby!